Long AN at the end, if you have time to spare please look after you've read the chapter! Enjoy~!
Chapter 20: Serious Conversations and Worries
Hermione all but ran for the dungeons after getting the clippings and the blood. She hadn't liked seeing the curse first hand. She didn't expect to see that her friend's arm would be completely petrified into stone or that it would be creeping, actually creeping, across her shoulder. She knew that Meissa was pale, sometimes she looked unnaturally so, but seeing the grey tinge and her friend's inability to move her arm had frightened her.
Meissa had always seemed so strong that seeing her fighting a curse and seemingly lose the battle was - she never wants to see her friend look so beaten. The raven haired Slytherin wasn't meant to be pushed down so low that she'd look ready to give up.
She bursts into the room where Blaise and Daphne were working on the potion that would reverse the effects of the curse and cure Meissa. The tall dark skinned boy was stirring the brew counter-clockwise, his brows furrowed in concentration. Daphne was slicing and dicing the ingredients to the specified sizes Blaise had mentioned. The pair had been talking to each other in low voices - Daphne asking for more instructions as she prepared the ingredients and Blaise giving them in a steady tone that gave no hint of any uneasiness.
It wasn't until Hermione burst into the room that the pair broke pattern and looked up from their respective jobs to acknowledge her. For the first time since school started Hermione saw the iciness in Daphne's eyes, the potential she heard about from some of the other students in the school.
She hadn't wanted to believe the stories at first, she thought herself familiar with the blonde that she would refuse to believe that Daphne could be capable of shutting people out. But she could see it now and it scared her because was she changing because she was afraid that they were going to lose Meissa? If Meissa's closest friend was losing hope then what chance did they have to save their friend?
"Hermione," Blaise's voice snaps the Gryffindor out of her thoughts, "The clippings and blood. We need them mixed with the diced Mandrake leaves." He pointed her towards the mortar - a small ceramic bowl - that contained the before mentioned leaves.
She nods her head and hurries over to the bowl, adding the clippings first and then the blood, using the pestle she grinds the ingredients into a thick paste that was more black than red.
"Done," she announces to the others just as Daphne was handing over a handful of diced roots.
"Just in time," Blaise remarks as he sprinkles in the roots, stirring.
Hermione watched on as the potion took on a dark magenta color before offering the mortar to Blaise when he reached a hand towards her. She watched as the black paste consisting of Mandrake leaves, Meissa's hair and blood was scraped out of the bowl and into the cauldron.
The bushy haired Gryffindor waited, her breath caught in her throat for the potion to change color, to react to the final ingredients. Blaise had stepped back, the stirrer removed from the potion, the second he had added the paste and was watching it warily while Daphne stood dispassionately by the cauldron. Her blue eyes staring blankly at the potion until it boils over, the color shifting from a deep magenta color to a beautiful teal blue color.
A near sigh of relief escapes Hermione's lips as the color registers in her mind - it was the exact shade Blaise said the potion needed to be in order for it to work for Meissa. But was it the right consistency?
That was the biggest concern they had - neither of them were brilliant at potions, even Hermione wasn't sure she would've gotten this complicated potion right on her first try. But with Snape busy in the Hospital wing they had to try it on their own. They didn't trust anyone else to handle the potion - the girls didn't want anyone else to be aware of the fact that Meissa could very well be sitting at death's doorsteps and Blaise only wanted to rectify his mother's actions.
The fact that he would have Meissa Black in his debt was something that could be dealt with later, after the girl's life was saved for the time being.
"How thick is it supposed to be?" Hermione asks worriedly as she peers at the potion from her relative safety.
"Like water," Blaise mutters as he eyes the potion. There was one way they could check the consistency but it also meant disturbing it. He remembered that if the potion is disturbed too soon after the final ingredients has been added then the potion would be ruined. Some of the ingredients they could grab from the student cabinets, others were harder to get and meant that they couldn't risk messing the potion up more than once.
"How soon can we take it to Meissa?" Daphne asks, her voice flat and cold.
"Ten minutes at the earliest," Blaise answers as he studies the potion with a critical eye, lowering the flame.
"She may not have ten minutes!" Hermione squeaks.
"If she doesn't have ten minutes then she most definitely will not have another hour if we mess this batch up," the dark skinned boy retorts.
Hermione stares at the Slytherin in muted horror - she was honest to god afraid that the potion would turn out to be a failure and the curse had already started to stretch across Meissa's shoulder. It'd be a miracle if the curse hasn't closed up her throat at this point!
~MJB~
Snape scowls at the blood runes that Meissa had smeared onto her petrified arm, the runes crude but surprisingly effective.
He knew that she would have an affinity for runes - the countless hours of drawing she did as a child indicated she would have the patience needed for the tiring art - but he hadn't been aware of the fact she had access to tomes pertaining to blood magic. He hadn't been aware that she was even studying runes in the first place - did he really need to focus more on her education and what she does in her free time?
He thought he had removed any and all tomes that would be too advanced for her from the library but apparently he had missed one...
He frowns to himself as something else occurs to him. Was it possible that the tomes she picked up the blood runes from were in the Malfoy's library? She did spend a great deal of her childhood being carted back and forth between the Black Manor and the Malfoy Manor.
While he didn't remember Lucius ever performing blood magic or even using runes he wouldn't put it past the man to at least have the tomes for the possible occasion of needing them. The brilliant thing about runes that so long they remain undisturbed they were powered by the magic around the runes.
And, unfortunately for him, Hogwarts was rich with magic - both ancient and new - any runes made on the school grounds would be powered indefinitely until the runes were destroyed.
In one hand he was grateful that Meissa hadn't tried using ink to create the runes while in the other hand he was furious that she had used blood to power her runes.
He knew that disturbing ink based runes were harder. There were too many types of inks that were nearly impossible to erase. Doubly so if they were applied to the skin. The only way they would get the ink off skin was to use an extremely expensive solution for that specific ink in question.
He would've preferred her using ink for the runes instead of using her own blood - he has heard stories about blood magic and the consequences of it's uses. The wizarding community of Britain has placed so much of a stigma on blood magic that finding out the true stories about those who practiced was hard - just wasn't impossible.
What little he has heard made him worry about the safety and wellbeing of the young Black heiress. Just a little bit of blood magic can be detrimental to her - her temper and views on things could lead her even deeper into the Dark arts of blood magic.
Was she determined to make it hard for him to be her guardian? He knew that many still saw him as a Death Eater - there was a time when he genuinely was a Death Eater. He knew that if it got out that Meissa Black - scion of the Black legacy - was practicing blood magic and his name popped up...
It would not bode well for anyone.
"How long have you been aware of blood magic?" he asks gruffly.
"Since I was nine maybe," she answers, her voice unwavering - the only indication that yes she is telling the truth about this. "And this was the first time," she tacks on before he could ask for more details.
"You foolish, foolish girl," he sneers, his voice wavering to his horror. The look in his goddaughter's eyes told him that she heard that and he was glad that she didn't tease him for it. Her eyes silently communicating that she knows she's being foolish. His mind recalling that to her the risk was worth it.
But would it still be worth it two months from now?
"Uncle Sevy..." Meissa mutters quietly, her hand fiddling with the rough wool of the blanket.
"Yes?"
"… I've been thinking about something." He glances around before sitting himself in a chair by the bed. Indicating to her that he's listening. "I... I want the paper works."
"For...?"
She doesn't look at him for a long moment before she seems to gather the courage to both speak and meet his gaze. "The Black estates... I want the paper works that would have Wizengamot recognize me as the Lady of the Black estates."
He blinks, the words taking a moment to register in his mind before he could react. "What?!" he exclaims. "You want to take on the responsibilities of your family's estates now?!" he all but shouts. They were fortunate that aside from Madam Pomfrey they were the only ones in the wing or else they'd be the center of the attention.
"Yes."
"Why?" he whispered lowly. "Why not leave it to your Aunt or some other relative!"
"Aunt Cissy is married into the Malfoy family!" she argues. "Mother is in Azkaban! And just about any other relative is either dead, married into another family, or disowned!"
He frowns to himself as he tries to recall the family tree, realizing with a start that she was right. And he remembered that certain requirements had to be met before the person could be the head of the family.
One: they had to been born a Black.
Two: they cannot be married into another family.
Three: they cannot ever been disowned from the family (even if they were welcomed back into the family).
Four: they cannot ever been imprisoned for whatever reason.
There was literally no one to take on the title and responsibilities of the estates. And he didn't like the idea that Meissa was willing to step up to the plate.
"You're only eleven," he tries to argue.
"I know."
"They'd never take you seriously."
"I know."
"You still intend to go through with this..."
"My family... It's my family Uncle Sevy," the raven haired girl mutters quietly as if those simple words would make it easier for him to accept this fact.
It wasn't, but he knew her and despite how she feels about her relatives she still cared about the family name. He could try stonewalling her on this matter, do anything to slow the process down but he knew that there would be no stopping her. Her rage and wrath over any attempts to stop her would only serve to isolate her from him - as much as he hates the idea he knew that there would be things out there that she'd need advising on.
"I'll see about getting the paper works," he finally sighs in agreement - the only bright side to this was the smile she gave him.
~MJB~
Hermione was all but running to the hospital wing, the precious potion clutched in her hand - wishing, hoping, praying that she wasn't too late. That they weren't too late.
It took longer than they thought for the potion to turn to the right consistency - longer than Blaise said was traditional for the potion. It had taken a good fifteen more minutes - totaling up to twenty-five minutes.
Blaise had no idea why it would take so long for the potion to settle - not at first anyway. It wasn't until Hermione was fretting that he theorized that there may have been a spell or two on Meissa - something that would linger on the clippings or blood and interfere with the potion. But Hermione couldn't understand how a few clippings of hair and some blood could cause interference.
She wasn't stupid to think that there was something wrong with the other potion ingredients so it had to been something related to Meissa. She remembered reading something about how some potions can have an adverse reaction to spells cast on the drinker.
But those precious moments waiting for the potion to settle left her scared that they may be too late. And she has no doubt that Daphne was just as afraid if not more so. She knows that she isn't as close of a friend she could be towards Meissa - even though the raven haired Slytherin has all but taken her under her wing.
Daphne was still cold and shut off emotionally - practically frigid towards Hermione. The Gryffindor had no doubt that if things had been different Daphne wouldn't have been civil towards her period. Hermione could only hope that she'd return to normal after Meissa is out of the woods so to speak. The blonde didn't even want to accompany her to the Hospital Wing - preferring to linger in the dungeons with Blaise to clean up their mess.
"Miss Granger," she hears a familiar voice call after her - just as she was about to disappear around the corner towards the Hospital Wing. She grimaces once before smoothing out her expression to something respectful, turning to face her Head of House.
"Hello Professor McGonagall," she greets pleasantly, the precious vial shoved into her robe's pocket. She can only hope that the glass doesn't break.
"What are you doing out of class young lady?" the stern woman questions, her eyes narrowed.
"It's my free period, Professor," she answers smoothly, thinking that she has class with Professor Binns and without Meissa there she doesn't think she'd be able to get through the class without blowing a fuse at Ron or Harry. She didn't think she could concentrate on her classes now that she knew where the other girl had been since that morning.
She knew she couldn't - how does one just go on with their life knowing that their friend could die any second without a potion to break the curse?
Professor McGonagall narrows her eyes at the young Gryffindor and for one heart stopping moment Hermione thought she was caught.
"Where, then, are you headed?"
Thinking herself to be safe she answers truthfully, "To the Hospital wing, ma'am."
"The Hospital wing?" McGonagall frowns, her eyes narrowing even further. "Has any of your house mates fallen ill?"
"No."
"Then why are you in such a rush to get to the Hospital Wing?"
"My friend, she's… she was cursed," Hermione answers again before she felt this prickling feeling along the back of her neck. The sense of unease hitting her harshly and prompting her to start moving - regardless of the fact she had not yet been dismissed. "I'm sorry," she calls to the Transfiguration professor, "but I have to go!"
She ignores the professor's attempts to call her back, actually running flat out for the Hospital wing this time.
She couldn't be late, she couldn't afford to be late.
She can only hope that her friend was okay and that she would continue to be okay. That this delay hasn't hurt her.
~MJB~
Meissa was paler than usual, her hair tangled from her repeatedly running her fingers through the dark strands - and from never brushing her hair that morning. The blood runes on her arm were still working but it was not a permanent solution - it had delayed the encroaching of the curse after reclaiming a portion of her petrified shoulder but it was not a miracle worker.
Snape was deeply unsettled - his constant pacing done outside of eyesight of the young girl - and tried as he may he could not, would not calm down. He knew of Daphne and Blaise's attempt to brew a potion - a cure - for the curse but his worries over his goddaughter had prompted him to leave the matter to his students - and to Hermione Granger.
As much as he despise the fact that Meissa has a Gryffindor friend he was sure that Hermione's smarts, Daphne's competence, and Blaise's knowledge of the potion that they'd be able to brew the antidote properly. He has to have confidence on this or else he'd have wasted precious moments of his goddaughter's life to fret over her.
Yet the more drawn out Meissa looks the more he wonders if he made the right decision.
He had essentially trusted the life of his goddaughter to three first years and somehow he suspects that her mother will not be forgiving if she ever finds out about this.
Just as he was about to work himself into a frenzy over this the doors to the Hospital wing slams open with a loud bang and Hermione ran in, her busy hair even more wild than usual. "Meissa!" the girl cries before she all but flew to the pale faced pre-teen, prompting Snape to step aside lest he be used as a stepping stool.
"No running in the Hospital!" he distinctly hears Madam Pomfrey snap from wherever she had hidden herself after giving Meissa her latest dose of the numbing potion. She was fiercely disapproving of the blatant signs of the blood magic used by Meissa and aside from making her comfortable - in other words, kept the pain to a tolerable level - she made herself scarce.
"'Mione," Meissa mutters, giving the Gryffindor girl a lopsided smile. Snape wasn't sure if it was the pain numbing potion or her exhaustion that was making her seem burden free. "You're back."
"Of course!" Hermione clasps onto the un-petrified hand. "I have the antidote! You need to drink it!"
He watches Meissa grimace at the other girl's words - reminding him, for some odd reason, that he needs to make sure that his goddaughter is still on her potions. If he remembers right this would be the seventh month in her three year regime and, as he discovered the hard way, the point where she'd just quit taking them for no explainable reasons - or at least from what he could observe, she was never forthcoming to the possible reasons why she'd stop.
"Any idea how it taste?" Meissa asks, her tone indicating that she hopes it wouldn't be foul tasting.
"None, sorry," Hermione answers with an apologetic look as she searches her robes' pockets.
Snape frowns to himself, thinking, and decides he needed to figure out why his goddaughter keeps going off her potions. He had put it off for far too long and it was now to a point where she could end up develop an intense dislike - more than it already is - for potions. He knew that some potions are cannot be avoided and her dislike may one day be the barrier for a life or death potion.
When he originally created the potions - in an attempt to help her - he was in such a hurry he may have missed something. As prideful he is - some would read this as stubborn - he knew that he could not let that stand in his way of discovering what is wrong with his original designs. It couldn't be Meissa's fault - not when she knows that she needs the potions, not when she's constantly going off them in the exact same month each time.
"Ugh," he hears Meissa gag, prompting him to look over. A wary smile appearing on his face as she held the vial away from her face with a disgusted look. "That's - ugh that's foul."
"It doesn't -," Hermione starts to say before he interrupts, his mind coming to quick conclusions.
"It is possible that because the potion was tailored specifically for her that the potion will have a specific smell for her while being odorless for others," he injects.
"What he said," Meissa agrees with that disgusted look on her face still.
"Does that apply only to potions tailored for a person or are there specific potions with these known properties?" Hermione asks, her eyes bright with curiosity. Though the blank look she gets from Snape had her curbing the curiosity.
"Severus," he hears, prompting him to look back towards the now open doors to find that Minerva McGonagall was approaching him with a rather stern and angry look on her face. "What on -," she was saying, stopping when she looks past him to where Meissa and Hermione were. Her eyes turning hard when she sees the discoloration in Meissa's arm. "What happened to Miss Black?"
"She was cursed at some time last night," he answers as simply as he could without the information being too little.
"So the reason why Miss Granger is skipping History of Magic is because Miss Black has been cursed?" the stern faced witch questions, her voice holding disapproval and a hint of something else.
The potion master was slightly puzzled as to what that something was but knew that as much as she disapproved there was a part of her that approved of the fact that Hermione cares so much about a friend. Perhaps not the fact that the friend in question is a Slytherin but he knows.
"In its most simplistic form, yes."
"And you're not chasing her away." He nods, arching an eyebrow waiting for the point to this. "Normally you'd be chasing her away."
"She is Meissa's friend," was his explanation for it - as if that simple line could explain why he was not snapping at the young Gryffindor girl and why he's standing off to the side while Hermione tries to convince Meissa to drink the potion.
It was and wasn't at the same time.
The way her jaw tightened was his clue that she didn't approve this friendship between the two houses - and he couldn't blame her, not with how their students often targeted each other. The pranks and taunts were usually brutal.
But for the first time in a long time he could see a potential bridge being formed between the two houses. In one hand he wants to discourage this friendship - tell his goddaughter to stick with Slytherin friends or at least the Ravenclaw - while the other hand he knew that she was so distrusting of new people that her having two friends was a novel idea to him. And he knew that once someone got inside that defense she had built there was no letting go.
"Mm… how severe is Miss Black's condition?"
"It's severe enough that I'd recommend her going to St. Mungo," Madam Pomfrey speaks up, appearing by the Head Gryffindor's elbow.
"She cannot go there," was Snape's immediate response to the name of the hospital.
The old witch looks sharply at him. "She argued against it - for some reason she's aware of her mother's actions."
"Surely not the whole sordid story!" McGonagall whisper shouts.
"She knows enough to be aware of the fact that attending Hogwarts has put her at risk of revenge," Snape remarks - it was something he had debated at length with the girl's aunt, and godmother, before Meissa had said - no, demanded was more accurate - she'd attend Hogwarts where her entire family has gone.
McGonagall sighs, her eyes closing briefly. "Do we have any idea who may have cursed her?"
"She said that she was cursed by an item she received in the mail," Madam Pomfrey offers as an explanation - though the tone in her voice indicated that she did not believe this.
And Snape could not disagree with the doubt in her - cursed items tend to last for the duration of the physical contact between the person and the item, once that contact has ended the curse is broken until the next occasion. It was not Meissa's best lie - not unless she wants to argue that the curse entered her blood through an open wound on her hand.
"She does not seem like she would be that reckless," McGonagall remarks in a thoughtful tone.
"Normally she is not," Snape agrees before he decides he could admit a small detail about her. "As you are all aware, she hails from the Black family," he starts evenly as he watched his goddaughter argue with Hermione, the potion as far away as she could hold it. "Without having to declare an alliance to any type of magic she is extremely sensitive to dark magic."
McGonagall looked sharply at him once his words sunk in. "Do you mean to say that she may have been cursed because her guard was down due to last night?"
Snape dipped his head barely in acknowledgement, his lips quirking just barely when he heard her muttering.
"How do you propose we keep this from happening again?"
"I do not know," he admits. "Meissa has always had this sensitivity to magic. Light or Dark - it mattered not what it is identified as for she feels them both equally."
"Is this why she can cast nonverbal magic?"
"No, I believe that is just pure dedication on her part."
There was a troubled look in the Transfiguration Professor's face. "Snape, I think you and I need to talk about Miss Black's magic."
He arches an eyebrow at the Gryffindor witch before turning to Pomfrey, "Can you make sure that Miss Black takes the potion? She may not due to… other reasons." He waited until the medic-witch nodded and left to coerce the young Slytherin girl into drinking the potion.
"I trust that Poppy will make sure that Meissa drinks her potion," he says flatly to McGonagall's questioning look. "Shall we retire to my study for our conversation?"
"We shall."
With one last look towards his goddaughter - whom he found to be watching him with a carefully blank look on her face - he followed McGonagall out of the wing. There was nothing else he could do in the room aside from worrying gray strands into his hair. Still, he couldn't shake the feeling that he could do more as Meissa watched him over Poppy's shoulder, her eyes literally unreadable to him.
~MJB~
Meissa was a bit relieved to have the curse broken but she wasn't pleased at all - she was being held overnight by Madam Pomfrey who wanted to make sure there was no lingering effects from the curse. She was expected to sleep but she doubted she'd be able to - the open space of the infirmary and lack of privacy wards around the cot was making her uncomfortable.
So she couldn't sleep at all. Then again, when could she ever sleep?
She was grateful that the girls were able to work out a solution to the curse - she knew that she'll probably have to pay back Blaise for his help. One part of her was fascinated by her regained ability to move her right arm while the other part was disgusted by the extremes she had gone to buy her friends time to save her.
Her arm was still a bit stiff - she wasn't sure if it was because it had been turned into stone or because it had been unmovable for nearly a day - and her magic had a slimy feel to it now. It was actually sickening and she was reluctant to even use her magic now. Of course Madam Pomfrey didn't permit her patients to cast spells within her hospital so there was no chance of her actually using her magic.
It's just, she couldn't sleep at all and it was maddening - she wanted the comfort of sleep so that she could at least escape the cold silence of the hospital wing. Even if sleeping left her vulnerable.
She was honestly tempted to ask for a dreamless sleep draught but she knew that if her godfather found out about it he'd give her a scolding of a lifetime. The draught - as she had found out before - had a high chance of causing her to become addicted to it. She couldn't risk taking the potion or else she'd need about a two weeks detox period from all potions - even the ones she is suppose to be taking for at least three years.
The cons of taking that oddly addicting potion outweighs its' pros by so much that she needed to be closely monitored while taking a dose of the potion. It was odd, in her opinion though, because she knows that the potion shouldn't be addicting and it shouldn't be able to upset her life so much that she needs to be tied down and left in a magically protected room to detox.
As much as she wanted to escape from her nightmares she knew that there was nothing she could really do. She already took precautions to keep from disturbing others in the middle of the night although she suspected that her friend knew about the frequent nightmares.
The amount of times she been woken up by Daphne was a bit on the high side in her opinion. Although she was immensely grateful because the other Slytherin was one of the people she could tolerate being in the same bed with her for more than five seconds.
Still, she was stuck there just staring at the ceiling, her thoughts on an endless loop. She was stuck trying to figure out what she could do after she gets out of the hospital wing. And she had no doubt that her cousin had been running rampage without her around to keep an eye on him.
And there was the whole situation with Hagrid…
~MJB~
Hi everyone, sorry about the slightly late update. And, now that I'm looking at the ending of this chapter, for the cliffie that I just gave ya'll. Life's been a bit hectic lately in classes and in general. I want to give you guys the next update as quick as possible but several things. My laptop has decided it really doesn't like me and wants to withhold the letter R from me when I type on it. (And withholding means I have to press extra hard on that letter to get it to cooperate with me). So unless I get a new laptop (not likely) I'll be slow with my typing unless I want to throw my laptop across the room (tempted but let's not do that). I'll probably get my hands on a computer in a library to try and work on this so cross your fingers!
On another note it's come to my attention that folks are a bit dubious about Meissa's magic - the skills she has and apparently her wandless ability. So lemme clarify a few things. 1) Meissa has only done wandless magic perhaps once since the story started and that was... not unintentional but at same time not intentional. (I just confused myself!) Lemme backtrack on that - the incident I'm talking about is when she used 'silencio' on Ron. It had been a spur of the moment, sorta instinctual because she's cast silencio on him more than once at that time, and it took her by surprise. At the same time I won't claim it as an accidental use of magic since that one, in my understanding, tends to be filled with distressed emotions and urgency.
So really it's not that she's progressing to using wandless magic - I doubt I hinted at Meissa practicing wandless magic successfully on any attempts prior or after that event.
As for her issues with controlling her magic - and anything ya'll can relate to that one particular line - will be revealed. I can't say when because I don't exactly have a chapter number. But hopefully ya'll will stick around as I work my way into her story.
Please review if you haven't yet and lemme know what ya'll think.